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There's a new way to build
walls out of block that has actually been around for a number of years,
but hasn't really caught on. Probably because it would put a lot of masons
out of work... What you do is just stack the blocks next to each other,
and then 'surface bond' the wall afterwards using a special mortar that
has fiberglass in it. The resulting wall is 2-3 times stronger than a
regular mortared wall (according to GODernment testing). This is the method
I used to build the tank. Here's a picture of the surface bonding stuff:
I also painted on additional water proofing (This is Good Stuff):
Originally, I was just going to use the thermal mass for cooling only.
Then I thought of splitting it in 2 to have one side for heating, and
the other for cooling. That meant I had to build a divider. My next one
is going to have separate thermal masses! I'm also starting to think that
heating will be my biggest challenge. In retrospect, the masses should
have been bigger, but I was working in a limited space. This is just part
of the development process. You keep thinking of better ways to do it
as you're building....lol. Well, as we used to call it in my programming
days, this is 'Rev. 1'....he he.
Edit 8-5-2004: As it turned
out, in the winter I just have to heat it, and in the summer cool it,
so right now I use the entire mass (I've punched a hole in the divider
so the water gets pumped out of one side, and returns to the other), and
have to pay attention in the transition times between summer and winter.
Sometimes, I've switched to cooling, and then along come some cold nights,
so I have to switch to heating!
I need to add some valving
if I want to actually have one side hot and the other cool, so that's
a project for another day.
This shows the thermal mass tank after waterproofing. I drilled holes
2 inches into the walls, and inserted 8 inch pieces of rebar, to provide
support for the divider
Here's one side of the divider form. I cut some 2x4 blocks to act as spacers.
These were attached with one drywall screw (I've quit using nails at all,
btw), on each side of the divider form.
The finished form. You can see the rebar pieces I put inside on top of
the blocks.
Here you see the form in the tank. Because I was in a hurry, I didn't
make the sides of the tank as straight as they should have been, so I
had to fill in the gaps. I took some pieces of wet towels and some other
boards (I had to cut one to fit the gap also) to make it work.
Top view:
After filling it with concrete (I used a bag of the surface bonding stuff
plus cement and sand):
After setting overnight, I took out each screw and pulled the side boards
away. The 2x4 blocks stayed in the wall.
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